Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today announced that Rs 100 crore will be spent next year to expand the state’s millets mission for the benefit of around five lakh small and marginal farmers.

The chief minister also said the fund would be scaled up in future. “The state government will procure millets to provide remunerative price to the farmers growing millets and to improve the nutritional security,” Naveen told reporters after holding a meeting here on Odisha Millets Mission.

The Odisha Millets Mission is being implemented in 30 blocks across seven districts, a senior official said. The seven districts where the mission is being implemented are Malkangiri, Koraput, Rayagada, Gajapati, Kandhamal, Kalahandi and Nuapada, the official said.

Under the mission, millet cultivation took place around 7,444 acres of land across seven district during kharif 2017-18 and now the state government seeks to take this programme to another 55 blocks in four new districts, he said. The farmers would be incentivized for growing millet, an official statement said.